Valentine's Weekend Update

So here is a Valentine's weekend (actually starting the week before Valentine's) update. 

To start with, Olivia is still addicted to tights.  It's all she wants to wear.  So here is a cute shot of her wearing her favorite pink tights and the leopard print skirt her Aunt Linda bought her. 

This was February 10th and unfortunately on this afternoon I got the dreaded call from Juliana's school.  I was okay taking the call initially.  They started off telling me that she had had a seizure.  Okay, I'm totally disappointed at hearing this, but I'm okay.  I mean, this has happened before.  Then she proceeds to tell me that it lasted for 4 minutes and 50 seconds!!!!!  This is where I lost it.  She had never had a seizure for this long!  They had always been for a maximum of 1 minute.  Rett Syndrome really knows how to slap you in the face and knock you on your butt. So I go pick her up and yes, she just had a seizure - she is completely out! I get her home, she is kind of lethargic but starting to smile again.  I'm thinking things are okay again, when bam!  Seizure number 2!  What a huge bummer!!!!!!  So thankfully Roger stayed home with her on Friday to keep an eye on her and take her back to the neuro.  Long story short, it's time to try another seizure med.  So we start the very slow process of weaning her off of the two meds she is on and onto the new one.  I'm not complaining, I just really hope this works!

So, in an attempt to move on, here we are at the movies.  We decided to take the girls on a Valentine's date to see the movie Gnomeo and Juliet in 3D!!!!

Needless to say, Juliana was exhausted!  She slept through lunch, the entire movie and still some more at home!  I guess she was still recovering from a rough couple of days.

Livi loved it!

Here is Livi right before we went to church.  I just caught her here watching tv and looking like such a young lady.  She is growing entirely too fast!

So after church, the weather was so amazing we decided to have a nice lunch in the backyard.  After lunch the girls headed for the swings.  They both thoroughly enjoyed!

This is Livi making her best silly faces.  The girl is a nut!

And here is sweet Juju.  I think the fresh air and sun did her good.  She really had a great time and finally starting to get back to normal!

So after playing outside, I told Roger I needed to go to the grocery store and the girls could take a nap.  As soon as she heard that, Olivia started whining that she wasn't tired and she didn't want a nap.  So against Roger's advice, I suggest taking her to the store with me.  What's the big deal, right.  The kids not tired!  Wrong!  As soon as we got to the store she went into a sleep induced coma which I was completely unable to wake her from.  Here is a picture.  I should have taken the picture after I did the shopping so show her still sleeping in the cart with groceries piled high on all sides of her.  I finally just had to lift the dead weight out of the cart when I needed the bags she was using as a pillow, and carry her lifeless body to the car. 

Lesson learned: An almost 3 year old still requires a daily nap!
Then I get home to a very well rested Juliana and her amazing smile!  God what a relief to see this face after the last couple of days.

Then it was dinner, followed by the production of about one million cupcakes for all of the Valentine's parties of the next day.  Here is my trusty assistant.  As she was putting on the sprinkles she kept "accidentally sticking a finger into the icing and say, "Oh oh Mommy!  I have to lick my fingo again!".  She is tricky.  Don't worry, we washed hands after each lick!

And here is Miss Valentine - ready for her party in, yes you guessed it, another pair of tights!

A New Day!

So, despite my last post, we have awakened today 3 happy girls with a great attitude.  The sun is shining and melting everything and best of all Daddy is coming home today - God willing!  What a week.  I know after reading the last post, you may be asking "Kristy, however did you survive such a brutal week?" or "Where did you learn those survival skills?"  Well as for the skills, I found it all came natural to me.  ha ha.  As for surviving the week, well we had awesome entertainment.  Olivia, my daughter the homebody, was totally fine staying in for four days.  She saw nothing wrong with this.  She sang to us, danced for us, wrapped all of her toys and re gifted them to us in a pretend Christmas, served us from her restaurant (too bad it wasn't real food), dressed up in a variety of different costumes, pretended to be the housekeeper (although I'm pretty sure she made more of a mess than anything) and took us on numerous other adventures.  I think that is one of my favorite things about her - she is so creative and has an amazing imagination.  So, here is a picture and a video to give you an idea of our entertainment for the week.

This is her dressed and ready to go trick or treating with her dog Bernie who dressed as a cat!

And this is her showing off her singing and dancing skills.  It's kind of long, but while your are watching just think to yourself, it's not as long as FOUR DAYS!!!!!!!!

Cabin Fever

So Monday after school, everyone is a buzz about the impending weather.  Having grown up in Texas, I've heard this story before.  We get all excited about about seeing some winter weather and then it never shows up.  Well, this time IT SHOWED UP!!!! And yes ladies and gentlemen, Irving ISD (along with all the school districts in the metroplex) close school for FOUR DAYS!!!!!  Let me also mention that Roger, my wonderful husband left town for work since Sunday.  So yes, do the math, I have officially been trapped inside my house with two toddlers and myself.  I did have the occasional visitor (thanks to you guys for braving the streets to check on us!).  I guess I never knew what having four days off would feel like.  I always assumed it would be so cool, but the truth of the matter is that by the close of Day one - I was ready to bust out!  So how, you might ask, did we spend our time?  Well let me tell you.

Day 1: We woke up to what looked like snow but was actually ice.  Not fun to play in.  Olivia was so excited when she saw it she insisted on going out.  Here is a picture of her walking out.  Notice how her feet are not sinking into the snow - because it's ice!

 The is the street.  That is inches thick of ice. 

 In keeping with my mom's tradition I decided we should bake something.  We always did this when I was a kid.  Any time we had school canceled we baked.  I think she liked it because baking always warms the home so nicely.  So we started off the day with homemade banana and brown sugar waffles.  They were awesome.  I figured since we were home I should take Livi to the doctor since she's been sporting a cough for about 2 weeks, and we all know that all this ice will melt by noon, right?  So I make an appointment for 1:30pm.  I go outside after lunch and the ice has not gone anywhere.  Cancel the appointment.  So with no chance of leaving the house, we put on some movies and cuddled up on the couch!

 Snuggle bunnies:)

 Day 2: Nothing to speak of weather wise.  Temperature has still not gone above 18 degrees which means the ice has still gone no where.  I get the girls up and realize, we are not prepared to be housebound for too long.  I have stuff to make waffles, but no syrup.  Lunch meat and cheese, but no bread.  Everything to make spaghetti except the pasta.  I'm starting to run out of milk at this point and we have no cereal.  Don't get me wrong, we wouldn't starve - I'd just have to get creative.  So I walk into the kitchen trying to think of what we can eat for breakfast when . . . . . . . . drum roll please. . . . . . We lose power!!!!!!!!!!!!!  This is awesome (sarcasm).  Sadly I wasn't even worried about the heat situation but was more bothered by the fact that we would face the day without tv.  Well luckily just a quick (sarcasm) 45 minutes later we had power back and have ever since.  Thank God!  So we get through breakfast and then, just like an angel, Claudia texts to tell me she's coming over!!!!  Alleluia!!!!!  Within minutes of her text I had one from Gale and Linda offering the same.  Boy did we feel loved.  So Claudia came over and I skied over to the grocery store to stock up on everything.  I got home and we made some homemade Caldo de Res (Beef Soup)  Yummy!!!

Day 3: Still nothing really going on with the weather other than the fact that the temperature has remained in the teens which means so has the ice.  I decide to make a second attempt at taking Olivia to the dr.  At this point I'm not sure if I really thought she needed to go or if we just needed to get out of the house.  So once again, our angel Claudia comes over to stay with Juliana while I take Olivia to the doctor.  The last time we were there I was shocked that we actually got a prescription.  So I figured I would try again.  No dice.  She pretty much made me feel like an idiot and stated she has not had fever, her oxygen level is 99% and her lunch are completely clear.  She as a cold.  Why don't you try and give her some honey.  Honey?? Really???  So we ski back home.  We made homemade play dough.  Unfortunately right before we were going to sit down to enjoy the play dough, Juliana had a seizure.  No matter how many times it happens you are never prepared for it.  Really put a damper on my day. Then we enjoyed a visit from the Pacheco's.  Thank you so much for braving the ice to visit!  It really brightened our evening.

Day 4:  Who knew it could get worse.  Livi woke me up at 3:30am complaining of leg pain.  She's been doing this lately off and on, not sure what it is.  Could just be growing pains, but I digress.  I looked out it's a winter wonderland.  A blanket of snow is covering everything!  We go back to bed and when we wake up there is about 4 inches on the ground.  Wow! 

 We decided to go back to waffles this morning.  Juliana was in a great mood this morning.  But my attempt to get her smiling got me this kind of creepy face that kind of reminded me of Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

I know, it's totally wrong to compare my beautiful little angel to the psycho from a Stephen King movie, but keep in mind it's Friday and she has not been out of the house since Monday.  I'm sure we were all resembling Mr. Nicholson at this point.

And here is sweet Olivia.  Boy she sure knows how to ham it up for the camera.  Her and I have had a difficult week.  She's in this weird phase where she goes from happy go lucky 2 year old to cry baby whiny girl.  And she switches on a dime.  Oh well, she turns 3 in a few weeks, maybe this will pass too.

 So after breakfast we decided to venture out into the snow.  I brought Juliana's lawn chair and her music. 

 They had a ball.

 Livi was throwing it up and "making it snow again!"

 Check out her gloves.  The one on her left is her pink glove.  The gray one on her right is my sock.  We had a crisis before we went out and couldn't find it so it was the best we could do.  Frankly I'm shocked she so willingly went for the idea.  I thought this would be another melt down.

 Livi doing a snow angel.

 And then Livi eating snow.  She couldn't believe I was letting her try it. 

 Immediately of course she had to let Juliana have a taste.

 She liked it too.  Until Olivia shoved a whole snow ball in her mouth and I nearly dropped my camera trying to get to her and help take it out of her mouth.  This of course did cause a melt down because she thought she was doing a good thing.

 Here they are posing together and of course Olivia is still eating snow.

We came back in, colored awhile (Juliana used her computer to tell us what color she wanted to use), played memory on Juliana's computer, watched Toy Story 2.  We had a yummy dinner and then I made some arroz con leche!!! Yummy!!!!! I'd been craving that since day one and just hadn't gotten around to making it. 

So now here we are.  It's Saturday now and I am praying that Roger will be home by this evening.  Being a single parent is tough, especially when you are on house arrest.